Saturday, June 29, 2013

In the most recent two Ego Out publications I have tried to
demonstrate that closed minded Scientism is equal to death of progress
in LENR. If Scientism is an anti- or non-solution, then it is my duty to offer
a viable alternative; I am a technologist, but the solution is in no way closed
minded Technologism the idea that technology can solve all our problems.
Or, thinking that LENR can be converted, first in LENR+ and then in a working
energy technology without understanding thoroughly some advanced scientific
principles. The problem-solution is more complex, more interesting and even
more beautiful.

Yesterday, my friend Yiannis Hadjichristos wrote:“we need
not to think technology in use as a sum of certain engineering (mechanical,
chemical, electric, electronic etc) issues as most people believe. Technology
includes also culture, business, ethics etc as always applying within a certain
society and political framework.”

This morning I read about a great conference for emergent
technologies: “EmTech
MITis where technology,
business, and culture converge.” This
conference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emtech
has a section for energy too,

and I bet that soon there LENR will be a serious rival in
popularity there to shale gas/oil. A bit of patience, please.

Just to mention en passant, recently, after Prof Y. Kim, an other very prestigious Cold Fusion-LENR personality
has visited their labs and his essential conclusion was: “it is obvious you
have a robust device which generates heat on demand”. More at ICCF-18

It is not a mystery why the technological awakening of what
has appeared as Cold Fusion came so slowly and why, even today it is understood
and acknowledged by so few. The history of CF/LENR is a series of alternatives
and options.

The first one was birthplace and parents. Exactly as for
humans

for scientific fields also, geography broadly defined, is
destiny. You need to have great care with choosing well your parents. the
country, town and house where you start your life because these

circumstances are determining if you get privileges or
misery.

I dare to say that unlucky Cold Fusion had chosen a
non-technological place electrochemistry- and I say this despite the fact of
having worked near to huge electrolysis plants (Borzesti, OLTCHIM), having a
over 20 years collaboration with the Romanian lead acid battery industry and
being good friend with

Prof. Liviu Oniciu- once our best fuel-cell specialist. But
let’s consider the facts, electrochemistry the branch of chemistry that deals with the chemical changes
produced by electricity and the production of electricity by chemical changes-
it can be technological for chemistry or for electric current, but NOT for
thermal energy. Plus, electrochemical systems are impure and overly impure.
Temperatures are limited due to the presence of water, while high temperature electrolysis
systems with molten salts proved to be unmanageable- very early in the history
of the field- I remember a discussion about this with Liaw at ICCF-2.

Cold Fusion
was discovered in an electrolytic cell- bad luck! Why not in a gas-phase
system, say a catalytic reactor? Perhaps because it would be difficult to
observe some (first weak) excess energy there.

Could it be
better if, say Piantelli had discovered cold fusion first and not Fleischmann
and Pons? Impossible to answer and also useless- the great merit of the two
great electrochemists is understanding and announcing the immense potential and
possible future of cold fusion as a new energy source. They had a dream despite
of making the discovery in a place- that in retrospective is perhaps the worst
alternative possible.

Piantelli
has discovered the unexpected heat effect in the frame of a biophysics
experiment 146 days after F&P- however a few years later his cell was quite
technological- gas phase, high temperature,

hydrogen in
contact with a “processable”, clean(able) nickel surface. He had allies-
Focardi and Habel plus their teams but no

followers
with creative ideas i.e. the sort that considers the achievements of their
model just a starting point from which they have to discover new ways. Piantelli
has applied systematically the Scientific Method http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2011/08/how-does-apply-prof-piantelli-rules-of.htmland has obtained results of
paramount importance- but still in isolation and with no real scale up to
LENR+, the enhanced process. In the field, the Pd D effort was

much, much greater than that on the Ni-H gas
phase line. Electrochemistry used for nickel is not more technologizable than
the F&P Cell. Randell Mills CIHT method is an exception in principle- it
produces electric energy- however it seems the way from mWatts to MWatts is
long.

Just to
remark that new technologies besides being cultural can be very difficult wicked
problems with traps.

The
functional theory of technologies

In the good
old times before the information revolution technologies were mainly
mono-functional – doing an unique thing-as well as possible- transport,
transfer or transformation

of matter
and energy. For information technologies the Swiss Army knife multi-functionality
is the rule- see PCs or smartphones

for
example. However multi-functionality is a major global trend, a definitory
technological virtue. DGT has started collaboration in an early stage with a
diversity of major industries for applications

For classic LENR the main desired function- generation of
excess heat is not fulfilled well being weak, incontrollable and evanescent.

Weak thermal signals could be treated in two ways:

1) enhancement by empirical trial and error using radical
methods and changes- first of all abandonment of the “cradle” and of the
culprit metal, palladium,

2) improvement of calorimetric measurements; calorimetry
owes a lot to cold fusion; the reverse is not exactly true. The very precise

measurements have proved beyond any doubt the existence of
LENR (science) but have not helped LENR to scale up and become a technology. Metrology
has consumed too many resource es despite its passivity as solution of the weakness
problem...

However it would not be justified to call this option an
error. The immediate aim was to demonstrate that the excess heat exists- fast

so the longer. The longer http://www.bartleby.com/119/1.html
less traveled way (enhancement) could not be taken from practical reasons, cold
fusion being engaged in uphill battles

for survival.

The general option for PdD and the relative lack of
popularity of NiH system again cannot be qualified as error; the story is much
too complex, multilevel, multifaceted and multi-egotistic...

The absence of alternatives clears the mind
marvelously. (Henry
Kissinger) Please try to understand what can a clear mind
do- really not much.

It is too much for me too; therefore I will use an
other quotation here:

Mistakes are a part of being human. Precious life lessons
that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at
least, others can learn from.” (Al Franken)

Even more, mistakes are a part of being a researcher
and being unavoidable when you do not have all the data and you never have them
all- you are working and creating in highly non-ideal

circumstances. This non-ideality, endemic for the LENR
field

leads to a limitation of the scientific method- as also
shown here:

The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure
nature hasn’t misled you into thinking you know something you actually don’t
know. (Robert M. Pirsig)

As more options are available now, errors become possible- I
have written a lot about these. And unfortunately errors are more than
additive:

But slight mistakes accumulate, and grow to gross errors if
unchecked. (Jacqueline Carey)

I dare to say that both Scientism and any form of myopic Technologism
would be very costly errors (as long as we accept that Energy- plenty, clean,
healthy cheap is the aim. The only correct approach is hybrid- scientific and
technological.

applied inventive and smart complementarity.

Also it has to be accepted both continuity and discontinuity.
similarity and difference between LENR and LENR+

Very soon facts will demonstrate that insisting in
considering

the Scientific Method as panacea for the troubles and
difficulties and problems of the field can be described by:

To err is human; to persist in error is diabolical. (erroneously
attributed to many authors, actually a Latin proverb borrowed from the Greeks)

Once a psychologist friend has tested my personality. One of the
conclusions was that I have many weak points but naivety is the most dangerous
of them.

Monday, June 24, 2013

If you can't be a good
example, you'll have to be a terrible warning.
(Catherine Aird)

My gratitude goes to the readers who have answered to my
questionnaire re SCIENTISM and LENR or have tried to help me in other ways.
This gratitude includes NOT citing them in connection with some quite dangerous
heretical ideas for which I take alone the full responsibility.

Actually, this paper just tries to call your active
attention to the survival problem of LENR, it is an expression of deep
discontent with the situation in the field and is a new assertion of the idea
that only a mixed approach (scientific and technological) can assure a future
for LENR. Homo sapiens and Homo faber have to work together for pleasing Homo
discontentus. The generally accepted idea is different- first Homo sapiens has
to decipher all the puzzles of LENR and then he can tell Homo faber what to do.

Scientism as a general concept is an unrealistic belief in
the omnipotence of OUR science (Science hic et nunc). However it is in any case
much better than the contrary opinion and, in practice is sooner or later
corrected by reality. Perhaps the correct, direct question could have been:

“Is LENR a special victim of scientism?” A very
inopportune question because it is common sense that Cold Fusion has problems
of development due to oppression by closed minded and ill-willed skeptics and
only lack of funding and support has stopped LENR to become the most important,
clean, green energy source on Terra. However, till the reproducibility problem
will not be solved= it will be something very rotten in LENR-land.

I have to confess: only a good dose of plum brandy has saved
me from depression when during my study of the papers to be presented at the
coming ICCF-18 in a keynote paper (Kidwell) I have read: “Unfortunately,
the poor reproducibility (<6%) prevented discovery of the trigger for this
excess heat.”This is a kind of reality I am unable to accept. My ideas
are probably solitary and non-scientific and deeply mistaken; I wrote an Open
Letter to the previous ICCF-17 and I have told straightly what I think-http://egooutpeters.blogspot.ro/2012/08/open-letter-to-iccf-17.html
and this was ended with:

“We have to acknowledge that LENR is like a
caterpillar that has to be metamorphosed in LENR+- a butterfly able to fly
(i.e. to generate useful energy)..
Instead of conclusions…I think the best option is for radical changes,
first of all in the mode(s) of thinking in/re LENR.”

That
my success/impact/influence was zero or even negative is demonstrated inter
alia by the very slogan of the coming ICCF:

Can the scientific method applied well when the
process is not under control? Are Mother Nature’s answers useful when She
whispers and stutters?

Is understanding the ultimate aim when we have to
solve the problem of energy? (here I suddenly remembered quinine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinine
that is used against malaria with some success, but its mechanism of action is
still not fully understood. And LENR seems to be seriously ill; an analogy with
malaria is even not so idiotic, high fever episodes are not predictable.

And nothing is more counter-productive and self-destructive
than calling anomalous (even temporary)a phenomenon aiming to
furnish energy for billions of people.

Otherwise, as Cuvier would say the crab is indeed a little
red fish that moves backward. And LENR is purely scientific, completely
knowable now, and is indeed weird.

One reader has interpreted my essay as a wake up call for
conventional science; actually I am focusing on the LENR community that was not
conventional but has recently embraced the idea of science as first priority,
kind of Science uber alles. The crisis of global science- physics first-is a
too complex subject for this blog, here and now.

Very interesting for me is the idea taken from the genius de
jour, Nicholas Nassim Taleb of ‘via negativa’ in usual language it
is more urgent and important to get first rid of the evil harmful things and
only later add or build the positive things. Your humble friend has arrived to
the same conclusion years ago see please my 20 Problem Solving Rules or this essay-puzzle

In the case of LENR the “negative way” is to solve, to get
rid of the life-or-death problem of reproducibility that also includes low
intensity and duration of excess heat. I know well many of my friends will say
that is stupid exaggeration coming from somebody unable to comprehend the subtleties of the scientific method and
will give examples of sporadic or
unpredictable or uncontrollable
processes that are doing quite well, scientifically i.e are studied with care
by many researchers. The killer difference is that cold fusion had ab ovo great
technological ambitions. Now it has great but undefined scientific ambitions.

An other wise reader has patiently explained me that
what happened, rejection reaction to CF and the reactions of those rejected by
the scientific community are both conditioned culturally and by the standard
modes of thinking. We do not have to assume any conspiracy. The inability to
cope with the frightening complexity of the reality, manifested as extreme
wickedness of the research problems. The symbolic boat of LENR was caught and
became a long-time prisoner between the Scylla of skepticism (outer) and the Charybdis of
scientism (inner). This situation has to be seen as a special, extreme case of
the crisis in science-physics-thinking- that claims a revolution. It seems also
that the unique salvation of the crew from the fatal attraction of the rocks
and deadly currents of Scylla and Chrybdis is to change the boatfrom
LENR to LENR+ much more advanced technically.

As a honest writer I take the responsibility for this dubious
metaphor, the reader has exposed these ideas with proper words- but this is
what I was able to understand from the message.

An other nice reader calls our/your unkind attention to
dogmatism, including its institutionalized form- a formidable force of inertia.
Surprisingly stubborn anyway. I will cite this friend protected by anonymity:

“There are times when the physical reality
intrudes so greatly upon our consciousnesses that the old systems and
institutions fail, or are weakened enough that revolutionary progress occurs.
as opposed to the evolutionary progress that is the institutional methods great
strength.”

In other words powerfulshocks arenecessary to remove the
old inner paradigm of LENR and then the unjust chronicized rigid impenetrable
skepticism can /will gradually melt away.

The obstacle and the
way out are defined: “the principle
difficulty holding back the field is the lack of researchers that can be open
minded enough to allow the new ideas in, and skeptical enough to block the old
and bad ideas out. Instead, you have true believers for whom every experiment
is a vindication and victory, and skeptics for whom everything is a fraud and a
cheat.”

The debates around LENR are fierce, and the methods used quite despicable. A
geographically distant close-in-thinking friend raises the idea of right-brain vs.
left-brain thinking in these debates; perhaps this deserves a special chapter
in an old vs. new thinking editorial about LENR (and LENR vs. LENR+)

An other subject of
paramount importance: when scientism will be removed and the problem of energy
source will be solved in practice, the field will need a new theory, actually a
creative association of diverse theories. A task for generations, but
technological and commercial success does NOT depend on a perfect theory. Frere
Axil contributes a lot to this Theory in statu nascendi

Frere Alain, on his turn correlates the
present problem with Kuhn’s theory including paradigm change that will be fatal
for scientism and all the other obstacles in the way of a new energy
technology- or more. I am citing Alain because he is resistant to attacks- is
an anti-fragile personality. (we have to explore Nicholas Nassim Taleb’s book
to learn how LENR – now fragmented, broken can become an Anti-fragile construction
indeed, as it has to be!

A discontented author of a new theory has reminded us: “The
status quo has always powerful allies” True at the third power…

Two complete answers to my questionnaire

Special thanks and my comments in blue go to B.A. and
E.P. who have answered directly to all my 5 questions re Scientism.\

The first

Q1: Is the problem ofscientisman important one or is just an
unjustified attack of reactionary people against Science?

A 1: I do notknow
the answer, but I suspect it is 'just the way things go'. That is, it is part
of the human condition.

C1:
Yes, we err, and err and so on, but supposedly less, perhaps it is time to
solve the problem and for this we will need a lot of realism and pragmatism,
Active discontent is an even more human condition, see please this quote
by Andre Malraux: “Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is
not one has better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on
one's ideas, to take a calculated risk - and to act.” Boldness is the key for
LENR

Q2 Had/has our field, LENR, ascientismproblem and in what extent has this
influenced its development?

A2: LENR had their problem defined for them and it made success
nearly impossible, because fusion is not the root cause of the energy.

C2- This is a radical idea, attacking in a way an original
certainty of the field, possibly its most sacred cow. However being given the
powerful meme ‘nuclear is bad’ non-nuclear or differently nuclear is a good
thing. Just wait

Q3. Do you accept that in present there are some inextricable
complex and temporary unknowable things in LENR?

A3: No, the problem is finding the right metaphor. For
example; I once told a group of children that birds pull the grass up rather
than growing. Later in life if they want a nice lawn they will buy birdseed
rather than grass seed. LENR has bought into D-D fusion where it does not
exist.

I have to agree with both the metaphor idea and
with LENR community chasing sometimes inexistent beasts and chimaeras.

Q4-5. What is the main problem of the field now and what is the
best approach to a solution?

A 4-5: See
above

C 4-5: This
seems to imply that the most scarce and
critical resource now for LENR is creative ideas not funding but I will
let you to decide if you say this or not.

Q6. What will be the global situation of the field in 1, 3,5 years from now?

A6: Rossi, Defkalion or others may break out soon, but their
behavior is troubling.

C6: Actually these are solutions from outside of
LENR community and we cannot expect from outsiders to respect our rules. The
basic and primary nature of these LENR+ solution is not scientific but
technology+engineering+ management-business. Why should these
discoverer-developers strive desperately for peer reviewed all telling

papers in the best journals or open demos and
detailed

reports helping existent and coming competition
to reduce

the business intelligence-industrial
espionage-reverse engineering expenses to a fraction of that “normal”?

The second

Q1: Is the problem ofscientisman important one or is just an
unjustified attack of reactionary people against Science?

A1: Isscientisma major problem? No. Let's consider
four groups the general public, politicians, scientists who are focused on
money and position, scientists who are focused on understanding/finding new
things. The first group believes science knows all and is certain. They are
wrong, but it is not important they have little power or influence. The second
group does not take unnecessary risks. They will not risk their success on
uncertain science though some well understand science is uncertain. Scientists
who, regardless of why they entered science, are now focused on their status
will not take risks just like politicians. Some of them understand science is
uncertain. Some of them entered science to avoid the anxiety caused by more
fluid fields of human endeavor. They have made science rigid to meet their
psychological needs. The last group is harmed byscientismin
the other three groups, but there is little they can do about it.

C1 Perhaps scientism is
good outside science and bad inside it.

Q2 Had/has our field, LENR, ascientismproblem and in what extent has this
influenced its development?

A2: No. LENR has political problems among career scientist and politicians.
Seldom (only in LENR?) does science offer a big and immediate threat to a
trillion dollar per year industry. When you threaten thousands of
multimillionaires, and several multibillionaires expect violent and systemic
push back. I think this is a special case for LENR.

C2- Usually (and
psychologically) pride is considered the worst of the seven deadly sins. It is
dangerous and counter-productive to think that science, pure science alone can
solve all our problems and technology should come only later when

we are happy know-it-alls.

Q3. Do you accept that in present there are some inextricable
complex and temporary unknowable things in LENR?

A3: Of course there are complex things going on that need detailed experimental
data to understand.

C3-bad reproducibility unfortunately means that
even the successful experiments give very different results and data. Too much
chaos in the field.

Q4-5. What is the main problem of the field now and what is the
best approach to a solution?

A 4-5: Lack of data is the main problem. The solution is more data. I do not
expect money from the western/global-bank governments. I think parametrizing
response to a few variable will be a big step forward and can be done by
individuals.

C4-5: perhaps the problem
is even more difficult. I am more and more convinced that even with a million
researchers working with F&P Cells and an other million trying to get the
best data and highest performances from the most pre-formed nano-structures-
static NAE- a lot of data will be obtained but no real progress toward an
energy source.The

Sine-qua-non condition for
a technology is dynamic NAE.

Q6:
What
will be the global situation of the field in 1, 3,5 years from now?

A6: If someone or some group parameterizes the
excess heat from nickel/copper in terms of temperature, hydrogen pressure, and
lifetime as limited by nickel/copper, lifetime as limited by hydrogen, effect
of various temperatures cycling then in five years there will be some
government money for more data taking. With some luck the energy poor and non
global-bank countries (the ones that are human capital rich) will be quietly
developing LENR+ for themselves and their militaries. That is Japan, Italy, China, and India.

C6- I think we will know soon what is the real
source of excess heat, we will be surprised but able to develop LENR+ faster
and faster The author who has
inspired the essay, Dave Pollard nicely said he is respecting my opinion but is
far from being a cold fusion or LENR believer. In any case he is convinced that
the human society is “so” unsustainable that even an energy revolution cannot
save us from the Collapse. On the contrary:

“I would hazard a guess that
if some astonishing new energy technology were invented and rolled out with
record speed it might make the ultimate collapse of our civilization even more
catastrophic by enabling population and exhaustion of our planet to accelerate
even more quickly over the cliff.”

On
my turn, I respect Dave’s opinion.

As
a kind of consolation- I am worried that my grandchildren will not be able to
cope with that evil Collapse without my help- I got a nice message of a
biologist, knower of many “isms” who gave me good ideas re LENR and the
biosphere.

Eventually
I think scientism needs a partner for constructive disputes.

I got the solution from Gary Wright who “created” a relevantaccusation in his newest paper:“Hanno Essén Admits Recent
Test of E-cat NOT Science” Subtle suggestion- if it is NOT science,
the test is not valid, it is a blunder, a shame and so on, fiat justitia,
pereat Rossi! For details please read Gary’s
paper.

It was a black box experiment without theoretical foundation
and it does not contribute to the advancement of human knowledge.

It has simply shown that the HotCat produces excess heat
something very undesirable for Gary who has bet his virtual reputation on the
repeated assertion that Rossi is a fraud.

“It is not Science!” but how will sound “It is not
Technology?”

Something that resembles perhaps Science but cannot be
converted in a technology. I am starting to write a list but now I have to finish this paper with the warning: “Scientism creates
(new) problems or our field, does not solve them!”

Scientism in LENR is powerful; today I have no chances in
confronting it. I am searching allies, humans because reality that is already on my part, has very limited
convincing power compared to strong memes.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

This writing can become a real source of inspiration and
information only with your help – via pro- and contra-comments.

The subject of it is difficult and “sensitive” and it is
beyond the

judgment of a single person, having a limited, specific
professional experience. I ask you for a small “wisdom of the crowds” creative exercise
action.

I have confessed that my favorite meta-sport is swimming
counter=stream, therefore for me it is a problem to decide in which direction
to swim in stagnant water

What is this all about?

One author I am admiring much, first off all for his
superior and deep understanding of the world’s complexity see e.g. http://howtosavetheworld.ca/2010/10/10/complexity-its-not-that-simple/is the Canadian ecologist, environmental philosopher and writer, Dave
Pollard who edits “How To Save The World” This admiration does not mean that I
share his ideas

Actually it is a value-added presentation of the
book: “TheScience Delusion” by Curtis White. The book is in way, an echo of
“The God Delusion” of Richard Dawkins. The target of these writing is SCIENTISM
see it defined and described here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientism
Scientism states that science is omniscient and the scientific method is omnipotent.

Pollard considers that scientism is untenable
because:

“science is, after
all, nothing more than the creation of approximate, limited and ever-changing
models and metaphors of some aspects of reality, that are often interesting and
sometimes (enormously) useful”.

The deep source of scientism is the ideology of certainty
and

the intolerance (even loathing) we humans have for complexity
and for the unknowability of most of reality says Pollard.

Scientism is absolutization and dogmatization of science mirroring the
same standard procedures applied for religion(s); there exists some 11,500 uniquely
true religions functioning as perfect sources of meaning of life and organizers
of life.

Scientism is bad for science but it is also a more general menace:

The consequence of the new scientism dogma goes
far beyond the censorship and dismissal of more creative and open inquiry; as
it reinforces the equally rigid, simplistic and reductionist political, social
and economic dogma of our culture, it becomes a force for tyranny, as White
explains.

The paper and the book carry a message of danger for progress,
a serious warning. One smart comment about the scientism says:

their faith is actually a betrayal of the
scientific method Scientism is the new despot, if we have no other values.

Personal comments

Obviously, you can read these, but I am interested in your
ideas; metaphorically speaking I want to know how broad is the spectrum of
opinions regarding the nakedness of the Emperor (LENR classic style).

Life in an oppressive society has made me an expert in dogmas,
mainly political ones- but it is well known that dogmas are very contagious and
penetrate all the sectors of society and individual life. The Romanian poet,
Lucian Blaga has stated: “Every dogma is an idea, often malefic, owning
all the weapons of terror.”

Years ago, in an editorial about dogma I wrote:”Man's
pathological passion for certainty exposes him to major risks. If he ceases to
think about the fundamental issues with his very own brain, he will become only
a fraction of what he could be. He will be de-personalized in more senses. He
will not become only an other man, but also other men- those who have forced
him to transfusion of dogmas.

Now, back to scientism, Pollard and Curtis White. A word
that is not used and interpreted properly in my opinion is "extremist".

Actually extremists are those who push a concept, idea,
ideology

up to its limits- but till inside some tolerable, non-evil
behavior. They do good things and bad things but still not criminal things.

They stop at some boarders but do not go further. Fascists,
communists, terrorists, active fundamentalists are worse than extremists they
do not respect elementary rules of morality, decency, common good sense.

The practicians of scientism are extremists, but so is
Pollard and Curtis White. Pollard’s ecologism and preoccupation with the

collapse of our civilization seen as something inexorable
and our return to Nature are signs of a benevolent extremism- are
exaggerations.

White has given an ultra-provocative title to his book
calling science a delusion. Actually science is the best thing we have created,
however it has weaknesses, limits, it is imperfect but it is

continually improving, progressing, correcting errors and
creating new and new tools, concepts, means and methods.

Human science is new and the shadows of the Dark Ages are
still omnipresent. And the task of the science(s) is formidable just because
the reality it explores and has to understand is so complex and dynamic at all
levels.

great
entrepreneurs and great generals know this well. In research this is common
sense: “First
you jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down.” (Ray
Bradbury)

Unfortunately
many scientists have developed a belief that we can understand everything, we
have theories for all the knowable phenomena. However this is simply,
tragically and increasingly not true. It
is not entirely bad, because it supports the idea that any
problem can be solved. An other facet of the problem is the idea that any
problem can be solved purely scientifically. Historically we have had similar
cases of thinking that everything can be solved by an inspired philosophy or by
perfect logic; the key of disaster is the…premises.

Dave Pollard and Curtis White are inspiring for the problem
part of scientism, however about the solution they allude mainly to a more
holistic view (correct!) including art (OK, but incomplete)

And excluding what they call technophilia and the concept of
technological progress.

Their extremist view seems to interfere with the
understanding

of the essence of technology—not only a problem solver that
creates new problems when applied inadequately but, first of all

creating a basis for solving all the major problems. No
alternative to this, a world without technology is Hell.

Technology (mon amour!) has a Grand Plan:

“Systematically improving the processes of
transport, transfer and transformation of matter, energy and information that
create something useful for people.”

In the frame of this, you can understand technological
progress that happens now all the time, everywhere on the Earth. I recommend
you to use this as a frame of realizing what happens now in LENR and beyond.

Perhaps the positions had been radicalized in meantime, many
of my respected good friends consider that LENR has to be first understood and later developed based on this understanding,
however I think that these two actions have to be combined and performed simultaneously, this being realistic,
pragmatic

and possible.

I wish that one day; Dave Pollard will use a Hyperion heater
in his pre-Collapse flat and think that technology can be good for people and
for the environment too.

Questions for you

Please forget about my opinion, consider me an
extremist-technologist and tell exactly what do you think;

Q1: Is the problem of scientism an important
one or is just an unjustified attack of reactionary people against Science?

Q2 Had/has our field, LENR, a scientism problem
and in what extent has this influenced its development?

Q3. Do you accept that in present there are
some inextricable complex and temporary unknowable things in LENR?

Q4-5. What is the main problem of the field now
and what is the best approach to a solution?

Q5. What will be the global situation of the
field in 1, 3, 5 years from now?

Thursday, June 6, 2013

It is a self-assumed task of
this blog(ger) to provide young LENR researchers with the best information
available regarding the field. Till now they have received mainly technological
principles and managerial best practice due to my own limitations, but now I am
appealing to a good friend- who is a world class specialist and authority in
those branches of physics that are bound the very core of LENR, nuclear physics
and solid state physics... Professor Yeong E. Kim from the PurdueUniversity has generously accepted to
help, first with the following interview.

Yeong Kim got his diploma in
physics in 1959, the same year when I became a chemical engineer. 30 years
later when he was already an internationally known theoretical physicist and I
was a very locally known technologist, we have reacted very similarly to the
advent of Cold Fusion. The risks were much greater for him but he remained
faithful to this cause till today

Q1:
Dear Yeong, can you please tell us about your moments of awakening,
illumination, scientific revelations to the truth of cold fusion?

As you know, John Huizenga dismissed the
Fleischmann-Pons effect (F-P effect) as the scientific fiasco of the century [John
R. Huizenga, Cold Fusion: the Scientific Fiasco of the Century, U. Rochester
Press (1992)]. He claimed that three miracles were needed to explain the F-P
effect:

(3) the
violation of the momentum conservation in free space (Miracle #3).

The above three violations are known as “three miracles of cold fusion”.

My first moment of awakening happened when Fleischmann and Pons
announced their experimental results in news media. Initially, my feeling of disbelief dominated
about this discovery as a practicing theoretical nuclear physicist, as most of
my professional colleagues did. As I was
searching a possible theoretical explanation for the claimed discovery, I
realized that the conventional nuclear theory could not be applied to deuteron
fusion in metal. However, at the same time, I did not know how to formulate a
theory for deuteron fusion in metal, even though I clearly recognized that the
conventional nuclear scattering theory at positive energies cannot directly be
applied to nuclear reactions involving deuterons bound in a metal, which is a
negative-energy bound-state problem. Quantum scattering theory describing the
Coulomb barrier problem is applicable to scattering experiments with nuclear
beams.

When they were being criticized at the APS meeting, I was frustrated
that I could not rebuke public criticisms by my nuclear theory colleagues,
since I did not have an appropriate alternative theory, even though I realized
that their theoretical arguments are premature.
Furthermore, I did not have slightest ideas for explaining the miracles
#2 and #3. However my theoretical curiosity
on the miracle #1 did kept my intellectual interests on the subject.

http://www.physics.purdue.edu/people/faculty/yekim.shtml Our optical theorem formulation is rigorous. My second awakening came
in 1997 with realization that our theoretical result for the OTF-LENRs can be
used to develop a generalized theory which is appropriate for describing
deuteron fusion in a metal.

My fourth awakening is currently evolving ever since I met John
Hadjichristos of Defkalion at the NI Week in August 2012. I was very pleasantly
surprised when he told me at the NI Week that he quoted our OTF-LENRs paper in
his paper submitted to ICCF-17. This was the first time someone in the LENR
community was quoting this paper! My
second surprise was to hear from him about the even-isotope effect which he observed
in his experiments and which was reported in his ICCF-17 paper. The observed
even isotope effect is consistent with the theory of BECNF! More detailed theoretical analysis of
reaction mechanisms for his experimental results is currently in progress

Q2: 24 years have elapsed;
hundreds of successful experiments were made proofs of the reality of the
phenomena. Unfortunately the experiments were not sufficiently successful to
provide the necessary understanding of what happens and the conditions to enhance
the heat release to useful levels?

What were your thoughts re the evolution of the experimental
situation in the field?

Experiments with
electrolysis and gas loading involve very complex measurements with many
parameters. Unfortunately, even when useful positive results were observed, it
had been very difficult to reproduce the results. The absence of
reproducibility of positive experimental results has been a major road block in
the field.

We needed desperately a break-through in experimental procedures and
techniques to achieve the reproducibility.
Unfortunately lack of research funding prevented intense and
concentrated experimental works based on fresh new ideas, especially from
younger generation.

Many of my papers are also posted in the above web site. I
hope to publish very important new ones soon.

Q4: Why the way to truth and to value was so long, why LENR
still has so many problems? On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your degree of
discontent with the global situation of LENR?

This
is more a philosophical question and I am a physicist. Perhaps CF was not
discovered in the best place; perhaps it is a historical bad chance that two electrochemist
geniuses have discovered it.

And
surely I am highly discontented with the experimental situation - weak signals
and poor reproducibility – if and when they come, lack of conceptual unity,
vision. The theory part was not much better, however I am happy that now
becomes obvious - our theory is a part of a greater vision, and it is a
critical part.

Q5: Recently some non-conformist newcomers, as for example
Defkalion Green Technologies Global (DGTG) came with the idea that actually
what we call LENR is something much more complex than we have thought and the
solution is to radically re-design the components – hydrogen, metal, reaction
vessel and environment to make it productive and controllable. What do you
think about this New Wave idea? New paradigm?

Recently, I had an
opportunity to observe experimental runs of DGTG’s R-5 reactor carried out by
their group of scientists in Vancouver. The results were
positive. More importantly the results are reproducible, since there had been
many positive runs with other observers so far in addition to my observation.
This is very significant historically since we have now a device which yields
reproducible results for the first time.
It is a break-through which we have been waiting for.

The break-through is
accomplished by new comers, new breed of scientists and engineers lead by a
mathematician who became an excellent scientist. This is a new wave and new
paradigm change.

Q6: Prediction is an intellectual activity superior even to
wisdom. Please tell my readers what are your predictions for the future of the
field! Are you looking to the present and then great chances are you are
pessimist, or do you have the vision of a bright future?

Recently I became very optimist. At VancouverI witnessed a
protocoled successful test with results leaving no doubt about plenty of
heat in excess and good control of the device. I am an optimist regarding the
principles, but also for discovering and or creating the details which I plan
to work on very hard in collaboration with my DGTG friends.